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Another winter more or less survived here at the Cold House. I don’t have any indoor-temp data to share this year, because the antique datalogger has sunk out of compatibility with the latest OS.X update and can’t be read out anymore. Safe to say the house has been colder than most, still, but warmer than it used to be.

This winter we burned about 1.2 cords of wood, and 141 ccf of natural gas. That works out to about 2/3 of the heat from wood, 1/3 from gas. In dollar-value it was closer to 50/50. The total cost for the winter was about $600. When I hear of people spending multiple thousands of dollars for heat for the winter, I am still amazed and feel bad for them.

In other home-energy news, the solar panels continue churning out the juice. Somewhere back when I wasn’t paying attention they hit the 10 megawatt hour mark. On net, they produced about 88% of our electric use for the past year. Basically we wind up running out of “credit” around February and have to pay for maybe a month of electricity before starting to run a surplus again all summer. Unfortunately our climate-change-denying Governor is determined to end net-metering here… so waiting to see where that goes.

There are still some bits of snow on the ground in the neighborhood but it’s warm and sunny out, so I’ve got to get to yard work. Enjoy the spring!

Many people (well, like seven) ask me, “Why aren’t you posting to Cold House anymore? Is it because you died of exposure?” Well, no, we’re fine here. To tell you the truth, there just isn’t that much to report, because (a) we had a record-warm December, (b) we had our second-latest-ever first snowfall, and mainly (c) there’s that central heating thing now…

But you might be curious– how HAS that central heating thing affected the Cold House lifestyle? Well, I have to admit, it is nice to come downstairs in the morning and find that the kitchen is 56º instead of, say, 46º. And it’s also nice to come home to a similar temperature at the end of the work day, instead of waiting an hour for the wood stove to get in gear. But, we’re still using the wood. In fact, the two systems are living in reasonably good harmony. The main zone thermostat is about 8 feet from the wood stove, so as soon as it’s putting out any heat, the gas boiler knows to shut down, and the wood takes over. And we’re still using other conservation strategies learned during the Cold Years, such as keeping the spare rooms closed off and generally unheated (the guest room is on a separate zone, set to 40º, and the office radiator is turned off.)

So what are the numbers? So far this winter (since October 31, when I turned on the datalogger) the living room / kitchen area has averaged 56.9ºF. That’s only 2.5º warmer than this time last year, which is a smaller increase than I’d have predicted. Much credit is due to the other resident of the house for her restraint with the thermostat! (Not that there haven’t been a few tussles!) Standard deviation = 4.5º. The lowest temp so far was 46.7º. The high was 68.8º. Here’s the temperature graph so far:

In terms of fuel usage… we’ve burned 5,900 cu. ft. of natural gas. Which sounds like a lot (I’m picturing a rather large swimming pool), but amounts to only about $100 worth (not counting the $20 monthly “utility fee” from the gas company.) And of course we’ve used some wood, but it’s harder to gauge– maybe half a cord, maybe less. But unlike past winters, we’ve had absolutely no electric space heater use, so that’s helping keep the electric use down.

Speaking of which, the solar panels are still cooking along. I’ve been pleased that they seem to clear themselves of snow pretty quickly, just one or two sunny days after a storm. Overall they’re producing a bit more than I expected, and we’ve been using less than in past years– so there’s a slight chance we might come out at net-zero for electric use for the year. But won’t know that until we get to their one-year anniversary in mid-April. Stay tuned!

With a bit of a heavy heart, I must announce here some changes to the Cold House infrastructure, and, probably, way of life. For reasons that defy simple logic, but have something to do with a natural gas line being put on our street, and also something to do with a sense on some people’s part that “seven years of this is enough”, we have recently installed at the Cold House one Viessmann Vitodens 200 modulating-condensing gas boiler, 3 zone pumps, 3 thermostats, 7 Runtal flat-panel radiators, and the piece de resistance, a hydronic “towel warmer” in the bathroom.

WHY? Why me, God?

I ask this myself, but so far have not gotten an answer. Perhaps, to quote Thoreau, it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. Or maybe I was pushed.

In any case, there it is. It has many moving parts and a manual of computer codes and fault messages that resembles ones I’ve seen from the Apollo navigation system. It is not simple, and it was not cheap– two strikes against it already, in my view. Indeed, under our prior habits, I could’ve bought enough firewood to last the rest of my life expectancy for the same cost as just installing this thing (really, almost exactly).

But, it is magical. And the idea– my idea, at least– is that this will not supplant the wood stove. It will just take the edge off (edges such as those mornings or returns-from-work where the house is at 45º). We can still heat only the downstairs, and we can still heat that only minimally. But in reality, I can already see it may be a slippery slope.

I am still tinkering with the boiler set-up in an attempt to actually make it stay in condensing mode as much as possible, which requires that its return-water temp stay below 130º as much as possible. Allegedly, it can achieve 95% efficiency that way. Interestingly, it will be most efficient in the “shoulder seasons” when it doesn’t need to produce very hot water. Meanwhile the wood stove, of course, is most efficient burning full-bore, as in mid-winter. So theoretically they could be good partners. We’ll see how theory matches up with practice.

In the meantime, after resolving never to deal with last year’s wood supplier again, I put in an order mid-winter for this year’s cord, with a more reliable source– only to have that source completely disappear mid-summer (phone number disconnected, website gone, etc.) As the kids say, she “ghosted” me. So in July I tracked down yet another supplier, who promised a delivery for this week. I have my fingers crossed. Then, just as I was wondering “Why IS it so hard to get firewood here in a state full of trees??”, a friend sent this horrifying Onion-esque news story about hardwood logs being used literally in support of the fracking industry. Which, now, I am a freaking customer of. Unless I go all apeshit and tear the Viessmann out…

Well, that was a pretty intense winter. We had record cold (coldest February on record), near-record snows, multiple blizzards, a firewood shortage… there wasn’t much time between the shoveling and ice-dam mitigation missions to sit down and type. Also, I went skiing for a while.

But it seems to be over now. We had tonight what will likely be the last fire of the year, so I pulled up the datalogger data for the winter to see where things settled out. I was a little late in getting the logger running at the start of the season… but here is the graph, from December 2 to today:

The average temp for this winter was… 54.6ºF — which is 0.1º colder than last winter! Standard deviation = 5.0º. The maximum temp was 71.0º (house sitter, who had fully permission to make herself comfortable : ) Minimum temp = 41.1º. So, all in all, pretty consistent with winters past.

But, this may be the last year of wood-only heat. Certain residents are strongly requesting that we get a “real” heating system, and, coincidently, the natural gas company is bringing a line down our street this summer. We are looking at various other options (pellet boilers, mini-splits, nuclear) but one way or another by next winter we will probably have something that operates with one of those new-fangled “thermo-stats” that you hear about. Still, it’s my plan to keep using cordwood as the primary.

Meanwhile, in other efforts towards sustainability– a solar PV array went up on the garage roof earlier this week:

Yesterday it cranked out 28 kWh, which I was pretty pleased with. Today was rainy and cloudy, so only 14. I’m hoping for a year-round average of at least 16 kWh/day, to make this worthwhile. We shall see…

Here we are in the thick of the cold season. Unsuprisingly, it has been cold. It’s a few degrees below zero (F) outside this morning, and 48º in the kitchen (the fire hasn’t kicked in yet…)

The average temp this winter, so far, now stands at 54.4º. Standard deviation 4.5º. Maximum 66.9º, minimum 42.9.

Here’s the latest graph!

The long flat spot around Jan 1 was when we went away for a few days. We do have one petroleum-burning device in the house (a Rinnai propane heater in the cellar), but ironically we only turn it on if we’re going to be away from the house for a few days, to make sure the pipes (and cats) stay liquid. It does a pretty good job of holding the house at about 50.

In a true Christmas miracle, the guys who promised me firewood back in July, and have been telling us increasingly strange stories since early October about why it hadn’t arrived yet, finally actually showed up with it. It isn’t perfect wood– at 23% moisture (measured with my handy moisture meter) it wasn’t quite the “<20% moisture” certified on the invoice they left. And, it is by far the dirtiest firewood I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how they managed to get the wood so dirty. If it went in their kiln that way (and I suspect it did), no wonder they needed an EPA air quality permit for the thing.

Anyway, we were down to the very last sticks of our very first wood purchase (2009), but now we’re good for the winter now (one cord). I won’t be buying from these guys again, I think. To avoid this situation in the future, I’ve already put my order in for next winter with someone more reliable and upfront: Heidi of Heidi’s Firewood (she probably doesn’t need extra publicity, but there it is.)

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a cold night! (Though actually we are supposed to have rain and record warmth tomorrow…)

I was a little late (Dec. 7) in firing up the datalogger this year, but we now have a couple weeks of temperature data to report. As you’ll recall, the datalogger is located on the kitchen counter, which is probably the warmest place in the house, on average, excepting the few square feet around the wood stove.

So far this season, the maximum temp is 65.2º, the minimum is 43.3º, and the average is 54.5º. The standard deviation is 4.3º, so we can assume that the house is spending at least 2/3 of its time below 60º.

In other news, the firewood-seeking saga continues. I am tempted to Name n’ Shame the people who are, currently, two months overdue for delivering to us– but as J. has decided to give them one last chance I will withhold that unless / until they fail to come through. The backup plan, at this point, is industrial compressed hardwood sawdust blocks. Which are not at all aesthetically pleasing, or especially inexpensive, but do stack nicely.

Friend Nathan forwarded this piece from Yankee Magazine, discussing New Englanders’ tendency to pick a certain date on which is feels “okay” to turn on the heat.

Of course, the short answer is that it’s never really okay to turn on the heat, the same way it’s really not okay to be doing most of what we do to the planet. Also, I’ve noticed that many people (even New Englanders) don’t even know they have control over this. It’s surprising how often, in late September or so, you hear people announce “The heat came on last night!”, the same way you’d say, “I saw a flock of geese heading south this morning!” I guess some people just leave their thermostat at some set temperature year round, and that decides when heating season ends and starts.

Our heating season may end very early indeed, if the supplier who promised us firewood doesn’t come through. In July they promised us two cords of kiln-dried in early October. When we called in early October, they said it was going to be a bit yet, plan on early November. When J. called yesterday, just to check in, their voicemail box was full, and they haven’t yet responded to an email… This seems like a Bad Sign…